


First Among Equals

by deracine



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Mutual Pining, Post-Season/Series 07, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, there is no season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:15:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29251302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deracine/pseuds/deracine
Summary: After the fight at the cloning facility and the battle with Sendak, Shiro adjusts to not being the leader of Voltron while Keith adjusts to being the leader of Voltron. These adjustments aren't easy, and then there's the matter of their weapons-grade emotional repression.Could be read as a sequel to Close Quarters or independently. Currently looks like it'll be about 8 chapters.* * *"He’s not Shiro, so far above them all in experience and wisdom that his command is not an insult to anyone’s pride. Keith’s just a kid, and two years on a space whale have suddenly made him the first among those who were once his equals."
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Allura/Lance (Voltron), James Griffin/Keith (Voltron), Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 36





	1. Shiro

Shiro finds Keith in his bunk, nursing a black eye with one of the Garrison’s ubiquitous cold packs. On most people, it would seem as if Keith had been in a really bad fight. But Shiro’s seen him come out of the Marmora trials, so he knows the only reason Griffin’s punches landed was that Keith allowed it.

“I’ve already seen the other guy,” he says, hoping to lighten the mood. “Care to tell me what this was about?”

Keith shrugs. He pulls off his tank with graceful efficiency. There are no bruises on his ribs, not the slightest scratch. Shiro’s eyes widen as he understands. There had been an audience. Griffin had needed to leave visible marks. The fight was choreographed.

“They’re afraid of me,” Keith says. “Having your planet occupied by the Galra doesn’t leave you comfortable with the idea of a superweapon in the hands of someone who’s half-Galra.”

“How did the news get out?” Shiro asks.

“My mom sitting at my bedside in the hospital left very little room for interpretation.”

Right. Shiro still forgets sometimes that Earth has become home to more species besides humans. In just the last months, they’ve established contact with rebel units across multiple galaxies, with even _Slav_ joining the IGF-Atlas. The paladins have had years to get accustomed to other species. Earth has not.

“Anything I can do?” Shiro asks.

Keith frowns. “No, I’ll be fine. They just need to know I’m not invincible.”

Shiro fumes. Keith spent days in a hospital bed. He’s _not_ invincible.

“You came to check up on me?” Keith asks suddenly, as if surprised by it.

As if there’s no reason for Shiro to even be here. And there isn’t. “Checking up” on Keith is no longer his place, and ever since he woke up in this body he’s been scrutinizing his every motive. He doesn’t want to be a sleeper agent ever again. 

It’s such a strange term: _sleeper_ agent. So many days Shiro feels he’s still asleep, or at least that he’s still walled away from reality and back in the astral plane. He had grieved his life, mourned the loss of his friends, and even let it all go. It’s not that he’s not happy to see them all again, he absolutely is. But it feels ephemeral, like a life being watched on a holoscreen. 

Only Keith feels real. It’s hard not to be drawn to it.

Keith is staring at him in confusion, and Shiro realizes he’s just standing there in silence without either explaining himself or making his exit. In the past the silence would have been comfortable, and Shiro would have placed his arm on Keith’s shoulder already, a squeeze of camaraderie. Of brotherhood. 

But Shiro can’t stand the thought of reaching out with this body he distrusts. This body was created as a weapon, forged in hatred and used to betray everything Shiro stood for. This body has lost all right to touch Keith.

“Shiro?” Keith asks.

“I… uh,” Shiro says, contemplating the end of the sentence. _I missed you. I’m sorry I tried to kill you. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to break the spell. I’m sorry._

Shiro remembers an ex who’d left the garrison after cheating on him. This had been years before Adam, and the relationship hadn’t even been that serious. Shiro had forgiven him and moved on, but the guy, Gregor, hadn’t been able to stand the guilt. Being forgiven had only made it worse. 

Now, what feels and actually is at least a lifetime later, Shiro understands why Gregor ran. Shiro’s running too. 

“Atlas needs me,” he says quickly, feeling a pinprick of _Who, me?_ in his mind from the ship’s toddler consciousness. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

  
  



	2. Keith

It’s an hour after Shiro leaves that Griffin finally shows up in Keith’s room. He looks wrecked, with a split lip and a swelling on the side of his jaw that mars its sullen squareness. 

He doesn’t bother with words, just reaches into Keith’s pants as if taking a fry off his plate. Keith doesn’t blame him. He does the same, and they take the edge off like that, quick and quiet, the way the Blades used to after missions. Proof of life, or something like it. 

Keith hadn’t missed the way Griffin had looked at him when the paladins returned. Annoyed and jealous, yes, but guilty too. He’s been nothing but loyal since, even helping Keith and Hunk look for Hunk’s parents. It’s taken years for Keith to understand why Griffin is the way he is, and it’s only because he’s had to deal with Lance first. There’s a cost to becoming the leader of people who were only recently your peers.

Lance and Griffin grate on him, but Keith knows he grates on them too. He’s not Shiro, so far above them all in experience and wisdom that his command is not an insult to anyone’s pride. Keith’s just a kid, and two years on a space whale have suddenly made him the first among those who were once his equals.

And Griffin has no trouble telling him that. 

“I thought the paladin of the Black lion was supposed to be a wise and mature leader,” Griffin had said, when they first started this  _ thing _ between them. “Not a hothead with discipline problems.”

“Maybe I’ve grown up,” Keith had said. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“Have you  _ ever _ earned anything yourself that Shiro didn’t go out of his way to give you?”

Keith had glared at him but refrained from punching him, and Griffin had seemed… disappointed? But that couldn’t be right. And yet… 

Griffin hadn’t been out there in space with them. The Keith he knew was younger, a different person. Keith told himself he was past the point where these barbs could land, but somehow Griffin seems to know how to bring out a version of Keith neither of them has seen in a long time.

It isn’t always about Shiro. Sometimes it’s about the Galra thing. Other times it’s about being the Black paladin. But it’s always the same thing in the end, about Griffin dragging Keith off his pedestal and down into the dirt with him.  _ Undeserving. Selfish. Worthless. _

Strangely, Keith welcomes it. With Griffin, Keith can take off the mask and go back to being a kid, when the most important thing was the attention of a superior officer, when feelings could just be felt instead of hidden behind the mask of a defender of the whole damn universe. Griffin already knows what Keith feels the others will soon realize: that he’s an imposter, an impetuous and frightened kid who tried to lead his team once before and failed, miserably. Sooner or later, someone will call him on it again. 

In the meantime, he and Griffin have this. Furtive stress-release fueled by mutual self-hatred and one-sided jealousy. The kind of thing that feels desperately necessary when you haven’t had a minute to yourself in four years, and two of them were spent with your mother on a space whale.

The only thing Keith knows for certain is that he can’t have nice things. It’s why he hasn’t bothered confronting Shiro over the growing distance between them. Shiro’s  _ alive _ , and miraculously disease-free, and if losing his best friend is the price Keith has to pay for Shiro’s health and happiness he’ll gladly cut himself out of Shiro’s life altogether. 

Besides, there’s still something he hasn’t told Shiro, a secret that’s both destroying him slowly on some days and the only thing holding him together on others. It’s something Shiro might have guessed already, when he met the Blades, or Lotor, or even Krolia, who looks all of thirty-two despite having a grown-ass son. A secret that was made real for Keith by the visions of the future he saw on the space whale.

Galra live  _ very long lives _ , and Keith’s going to have to watch Shiro die at least one more time.


	3. Shiro

Keith’s reputation is becoming a problem. Nobody mentions Admiral Sanda anymore, and Keith claims she redeemed herself after betraying them to Sendak, but Shiro has no plans to forgive her and she wasn’t alone. There are still many among the Garrison who are reacting to recent changes with the predictable skepticism and distrust of those whose only experience of an alien species has involved destruction and enslavement. 

Allura is helping, but she’s poised, charming and brilliant at every turn, and fully aware that she is a guest on a planet that is grateful for Altean technology but also deeply terrified of its power. Keith, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to realize that it’s harder for the Garrison to accept a dropout cadet with anger issues as the Black paladin than it is for them to accept Allura as a ten-thousand year-old princess from an advanced alien civilization. To the Garrison, Keith is…  _ ordinary _ . 

Every other day, one of Sanda’s former coterie finds a new and more diplomatic way to tell Shiro that keeping Keith on as the Black paladin is ill-advised. After all, paladins are vulnerable. Wouldn’t it make sense to train replacements? Couldn’t they train Griffin or one of the other MFE pilots on the lions? Why can’t Shiro pilot the Black lion again? 

Even Iverson, who has committed treason for Sam Holt and Shiro, scratches his chin when the topic of Keith being half-Galra comes up and says, “You always did have a soft spot for him, Shiro.”

As if Keith is just another pilot who can be replaced, and not the greatest pilot in his generation and the known universe. It pisses Shiro off, touching on a nerve he had forgotten he even had. It’s been years since he’s had his authority questioned by anyone other than Keith, and even Keith never outranked him.

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? As the head of Voltron, Keith is his equal, his peer. Voltron doesn’t fit nicely into the military’s command structures, but those structures belong to Earth. Voltron belongs to the  _ universe _ . The Atlas and Voltron may have worked in perfect synchronicity so far, but only because Keith actually listens to Shiro. 

_ For now _ , Shiro’s mind supplies helpfully. 

Earth is taking in stragglers and survivors from across the universe, and Voltron’s lions have been helping not just with the rebuilding effort but with the PR one. Having Allura go out with Lance, allowing the world to see their blossoming love for each other, has done more to make humans comfortable with Altean technology than Sam Holt’s kindly explanations. Having Keith and Acxa do the same? Doesn’t have the same effect. 

And it has the added effect of making Shiro queasy for reasons he’s unwilling to explore right now. He has a ship to command. 

The tipping point comes. Shiro knows they need to get Atlas into space, to chase the remnants of the Galra empire down and destroy Haggar. But Earth’s officers are reluctant to abandon the planet so soon after Sendak’s occupation. It’s been weeks of delicate explanations: 

_ No, Voltron can’t go without the Atlas. The lions need a base that can generate wormholes. _

_ No, Atlas can’t leave Voltron here on Earth. Voltron is what unites the universe and Atlas is an untested ship. _

Atlas balks at that, shrinking Shiro’s bathroom in her petulance. Shiro spends his nights teaching her patience. He’s deeply grateful to her. If it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t have known what to do with himself. She’s given him purpose, something that has torn him out of his dark humor about evil clones and his debilitating bouts of self-pity. 

There’s a meeting among the highest ranked living officials of Earth, one where it’s clear that Voltron’s allegiance to Earth must be unquestionable, as must Keith’s allegiance to the human race. They bring Keith in alone, without giving him any information. They need to know that he’ll listen to  _ them _ , not just to Shiro. 

Iverson opens, thanking Keith for his courage and loyalty (and publicly rehabilitating his image among the Garrison, but Keith doesn’t know that). 

“Thank you,” Keith says, looking confused by Iverson’s officiousness. 

The Presidents of nearly fifty surviving nations are on holoscreens, watching Keith’s every move. Watching him struggle not to fold his arms defensively.

“The Atlas is prepared to join Voltron in the fight against the Galra,” Shiro says, and Keith still looks so damn confused. Shiro can read his thoughts:  _ Of course Atlas will join us, why are we talking about this?  _

“But leaving Earth defenceless isn’t a decision we’re making lightly,” says Wang, one of the remaining Presidents. He looks gaunt, his days in the Galra labor camp visible on his face. “We need to know that Voltron stands with the people of Earth.”

“Of course,” Keith says, without hesitation. 

There’s an awkward silence. Maybe they had expected him to be more politic, to say something about how all planets were equal in Voltron’s eyes. 

“Uh, does that mean you understand our concerns about the leadership of Voltron and are willing to step down?” 

Shiro is so stunned by the question that he’s out of his chair before he even knows who asked it. 

“Wait a minute,” he says. “That’s not even a possibility. The Black lion chooses its paladin. Keith was chosen. We don’t get a say.”

“But you were the paladin of the Black lion before Keith, were you not?” It’s Vice-Admiral Rogers, one of the men who had stood with Sanda. He may not be Captain of the Atlas, but he still outranks Shiro.

“Yes, but I no longer have a connection to the Black lion.”

“My point is simply that there might be other humans, those we haven’t yet considered, that the Black lion would be ready to accept.”

Shiro is fuming. He can’t bring himself to look at Keith.

Rogers continues, “After all, it was pure coincidence that the five paladins happened to be in the right place at the right time. The lions have more options now.”

To everyone’s surprise, it’s Keith who brings peace. 

“If anyone is interested in trying to connect with the Black lion, they’re welcome with my blessing,” he says, sounding exhausted. “Is that all?”

“One more thing,” Rogers says, and Shiro’s Altean fist dents the table. “Should a replacement be found, is it your intention to join the Galra organization called the Blades of Marmora to be with your mother?”

Keith is quiet, considering the implications of the question. Shiro tries to telegraph sympathy and warning.  _ Don’t tell them you’re already a Blade. Don’t suggest that your loyalty is conditional. _

“It is my intention to fight tyrants in any way I can, for as long as I live, wherever I might find them. On Earth and across the universe.”

A small smile is twitching at the edge of his lips. Rogers looks gobsmacked. Shiro’s heart bursts open with pride.

The meeting ends in uproar.


	4. Keith

“You don’t suppose Black’s mad at you for whoring her up to every wannabe paladin on the planet?” 

“ _ Lance _ ,” Keith says, but he’s not really annoyed. It’s mostly just a habit at this point. Lance needs his attention. It’s something Keith’s still getting used to. He’s so used to fighting everyone else for Shiro’s attention that he missed the memo that people wanted  _ his _ attention. It’s now his job to know how everyone else is doing, to bolster them up, to believe in them and to praise them. He has no idea how he’s supposed to do that.

“I just mean, you’ll probably have to sanitize all the controls after this.”

There’s a long line of people in decreasing order of military rank, each walking up to Black for a chance to lead Voltron. Some aren’t even allowed past Black’s forcefield. A rare few are allowed into the cockpit. But so far, none of them have been able to get Black to so much as hiss at them.

Keith wonders why Lance hasn’t taken another shot. It must appear on his face because Lance says suddenly, “For so long, I envied you. Now, even Allura couldn’t make me take your place.”

Keith frowns. “What changed?”

“You’re joking, right?” Lance says. “You don’t see it?” 

Keith shakes his head. 

Lance, strangely enough, looks about to cry. Keith realizes his arms are folded again, and works on disentangling them. He’s supposed to welcome others’ emotions, to win their trust. 

“I keep thinking,” Lance says, “about how Shiro tried to connect with me from the astral plane and I didn’t listen. About how I was too caught up in feeling sorry for myself to pay attention to what Lotor was doing. About how shitty we all were to you when you were in charge. If you’d just stayed, I wonder if you’d have known…”

Keith swallows. He’s gone down this road before. “I don’t have to wonder. Sometimes I think I always knew. That very first time at Va’kar, when I disagreed with him and he said it was a direct order. The Shiro I knew would have never presumed to command me. He would have trusted my instincts. He was different, even then. I just thought he needed to feel in control after everything he’d been through.”

Keith debates whether to let Lance in on the rest. The part that’s really terrifying. He watches Griffin walk up to Black and get rebuffed summarily by her forcefield with a vicious sense of vindication. 

“But back then,” Keith admits, “my instincts were wrong. I underestimated Lotor. I overestimated Voltron. I didn’t trust the team, and I know they didn’t trust me. I wasn’t ready to lead.”

His shoulders lift to his ears, waiting for Lance to take the opening.  _ And you are now?  _

“Nobody ever is,” Lance says, sighing. He places an arm on Keith’s hiked shoulder, and Keith stares at it in suspicion. Nobody but Shiro has ever done this. Hunk hugged him once but that was when he was distraught about his parents. Is Lance trying to  _ comfort _ him?

“Uh, Lance?”

Lance ignores him. “I think you trust yourself more now,” he says. “More than any of us trust ourselves. Even Shiro.”

Ice fills Keith’s veins.  _ No _ . It’s unfathomable that Shiro would doubt himself, would see himself as anything but their leader. Except… 

While Rizavi goes to the cockpit and Black hums in Keith’s mind,  _ Maybe someday _ , Keith realizes everything he thought he knew is wrong. He has been waiting all along for Shiro to lead them again. On the way home, he was recovering. Then he was teaching Atlas the ropes. But surely he’d eventually go back to being the team’s leader and Keith would go back to the Blades or follow along on the Atlas as a spare Red paladin. 

Somewhere in Keith’s mind he hasn’t quite accepted that he’s going to be the Black paladin  _ permanently _ . He’s still wearing the red paladin’s outfit for crying out loud. 

He can’t be in charge. He  _ shouldn’t _ be in charge. And yet…  _ oh my God _ , was that what that meeting was actually about? Everyone had been oddly deferential, even while they wanted to replace him. Even Shiro had spoken as if he was now just the Captain of the Atlas, a designate of Planet Earth who wished to forge an alliance with him as the leader of Voltron.

_ Holy fuck _ , he totally missed the memo. He  _ really _ shouldn’t be in charge.

He suddenly finds himself smashed into Lance’s shoulder. 

“Breathe,” Lance says. “I’m going to walk us back into the other bay, okay? I don’t think it’s a good idea for all those wannabes to see Voltron’s leader looking like a deer in the headlights.”

Lance drags him out of sight and Keith hangs on, grateful and yet deeply irritated. Lance is going to hold this over him forever.

Keith pushes him away once they’re alone. “Get off me.”

“But it was a bonding moment!” Lance protests. “Why are you like this?”

“Like what?”

“We’re your team,” Lance says, hands on his hips. “ _ Let us help you _ . You ever think maybe if Shiro had trusted us more, we might have been able to help him before things got to the point where you had to cut off his arm?”

The line has been crossed, and Lance knows it. His hands fly to his mouth in almost comical dismay. Keith glares at him and shoves him away. He needs to get out of here.

As if reading his mind, the wolf arrives and with a single touch zaps him away to safety.


	5. Shiro

Today is a bad day. Shiro knows some days just are, when he’s working through the kind of shit no one in the entire universe has had to live through. The Garrison has therapists on staff, most of whom are working through the soldiers’ PTSD over the Galra invasion of Earth. Shiro balked at therapy, unsure what any psychologist could do with his case, and not wanting to take time away from other people who might need help more. 

“Excuses,” Matt says over the console when they finally chat again. “I mean, I built myself a robot therapist because I needed one so badly.”

Shiro’s glad his friendship with Matt seems to have survived everything. Matt didn’t have much of a reaction to his being a clone of himself with a transplanted consciousness, but Matt’s also dating a cyborg with an emergent consciousness, so there’s that.

“Maybe later,” Shiro concedes. “Right now things are really busy. They need me—”

Matt laughs. “Shiro, you always were good at lying to yourself. You need them to need you. You need the excuse. I remember, even before Kerberos, every time you ran to Keith because he  _ needed _ you, and it was just so you didn’t have to face things falling apart with Adam.”

Shiro almost hangs up. He catches himself in the act, notices the way he shuts down immediately at the sign of emotional distress. His body might not be his own, but his coping strategies seem to have transplanted all the same.

He’s bad at relationships. He knows this. Matt knows this. Everyone knows this. He needs to focus on the things he  _ is _ good at. If he can make a difference to the universe, maybe he’ll be forgiven for—

Shiro shakes his head. “Keith wasn’t an excuse.”

Matt looks suddenly sad. “No, he wasn’t. But maybe you’re both far too alike to ever work. He’d rather die than face the things he fears too.”

Shiro goes cold. He knows this too. He remembers being in the Black Lion’s consciousness, watching Keith close his eyes in resignation as he fell to his death clutching the clone who had tried to kill him. 

And as if Shiro needs more than one data point, this is when Matt tells him about Naxzela.

It’s a really bad day. 

Shiro cancels his appointments for the day and hides in his room, ignoring Atlas’ questions and trying to recover some sense of self. The memory comes to him, unbidden, of the prisoners they’d freed, telling Shiro and Pidge back on Arus about how Shiro had been so blood-thirsty he’d struck Matt down before entering the arena.  _ Champion _ , they’d called him, and all he’d managed to say was, “I’d never hurt my friends.”

He knows better now. Yes, there had been more to the story, but Shiro would  _ absolutely _ hurt his friends if it meant keeping them alive. He’d hurt Matt. He’s hurting Keith. He will break Keith’s heart if it will mean saving his life. 

Maybe this is who he really is. It’s been a struggle, knowing himself while the clone’s memories and waning consciousness struggled in this body alongside his own. It had taken him long enough to accept that he couldn’t just write off everything the clone did as  _ that thing _ , or  _ evil _ . There are things the clone did, like acting cool and collected so nobody would see the mess he was underneath, that are things Shiro has always done. Is doing now.

The clone  _ saw _ , didn’t he? The man with his own face, strapped to the table, before he left the Galra cruiser? He knew he wasn’t the only one. The clone wondered, but never faced up to the truth. 

Shiro knows that when it comes to facing himself, he’s a coward. A monster. A failed paladin. Even the kind of devotion that crossed a galaxy to find him wasn’t enough to break Haggar’s hold. And he’d called  _ Keith _ worthless. 

The wave of self-hatred, when it comes, is familiar enough to almost be welcome. He takes himself back to the first days of his second resurrection, when he hadn’t been able to string any words together and simply lay in bed on the Black Lion, trying to make sense of the twin strands of memory in his head. He’d wet himself, unused to the simple and banal urges of his new body and unable to control them. 

Keith hadn’t said anything, simply helped him clean up afterwards. Shiro hated it. This was exactly the future he’d wanted to avoid for himself. He hadn’t wanted to be an invalid in Adam’s care, while illness ravaged his body. And then, half a universe away, a burden was exactly what he’d become. 

Matt’s right, of course. If it hadn’t been Kerberos it would’ve been something else. He’d have found a way to leave Adam before Adam saw him vulnerable.  _ That _ was why they fought. 

Shiro puts his head into his hands. What the hell had Keith meant when he said he loved him? He knows not to believe the  _ brother _ thing. He knows that was just Keith’s way of making his love seem  _ less _ , and non-threatening. He’d been doing that all along to protect his own heart, to convince himself that was all it was, because Shiro was with Adam, or might go back to Adam. The age difference between them had reinforced the distance… and then suddenly fallen apart after Keith’s time in the quantum abyss.

No, the more significant question was who exactly did Keith love? The mentor and leader who’d always taken him under his wing and guided him? Because Shiro hasn’t been that in a long time and may never be that again. The clone who treated Keith as a subordinate? Because Keith had run from that version of him at the first opportunity. Surely he doesn’t love the person Shiro is now, because even Shiro doesn’t know who that is.

It was easy to be strong when death was inevitable and the only thing to be feared. But these days living is terrifying too. 


	6. Keith

Acxa helps with a rebuilding mission near what used to be Denver. Keith knows she wants to say something, and simply waits for her to spill it. 

“Humans don’t seem to like you,” Acxa says, when they’re back in the Black Lion. “I thought they’d be more grateful to see their leader.”

“That’s not why we do this,” Keith says. He’s not surprised. Acxa spent years understanding Lotor, especially how he manipulated people into loving him. She must think Keith completely incompetent at being the kind of leader people want to follow. 

Which, well, he’s known for a long time.

“It doesn’t bother you?” Acxa asks. “You’re risking your life, working to bring peace to the universe, and they won’t even look at you when you bring them supplies to rebuild their homes.”

Keith sighs. “The only battles I fight are the ones I can’t  _ not _ fight. Winning isn’t the point, but losing isn’t an option.”

Acxa processes this. Keith wonders what she makes of it. It’s a little bit like  _ Victory or death _ , except without the  _ Victory _ part. 

To his surprise, Acxa lifts his hand and pulls off his glove. He tenses but doesn’t fight her. She places his palm on the back of her neck. 

“What are you doing?”

“Have you never done this with Shiro?”

Keith snatches his hand away as if it burns. He knows people assume, and he knows why they do it. 

“It’s just a way to connect more deeply with someone else’s feelings,” Acxa says. “Among the Galra, touch conveys a great deal. I wished to know more of what you meant.”

Keith blushes and looks away. “I’m not sure I can give you that.”

“Sharing your feelings with more than one person doesn’t mean you value each one less,” Acxa says. “It means you value all of them more.”

Keith understands, now, why Krolia had looked so sad sometimes in the Quantum Abyss. She’d found Keith closed off, and even if the flashes of past and future they’d seen together had eventually brought them closer, it was because they allowed Keith to see into Krolia but not the other way around, not really.

Krolia had asked questions, of course. “What do you feel for him? Why did you leave him for the Blades?” 

Keith hadn’t answered. Then she’d reached out to him, exactly as Acxa had done, and he’d flinched away.

He knows he owes the people who love him more than he’s giving them. But opening up feels worse than bleeding out. 

Still, for Acxa, he manages, “I don’t know how long I’ll be around. And I’m part Galra, but also part human.”

Acxa squints, as if she’s trying to understand why he’s telling her this. His heart is beating fast. He’s talking around what he wants to say, hoping she reads between the lines.

“You’re aware I desire you,” she says, and the transport pod hits imaginary turbulence at her directness. “You’re trying to protect me from getting hurt.”

Keith swallows. “Take it from someone who’s done it a few times. Watching people you love die is a fate worse than death.”

Acxa is silent for a while, and then she says, “Your mother had to know that she would outlive your father. Would outlive you. Humans are mayflies to the Galra. Weak, squishy. She chose to have you anyway. Won’t she have to watch you die?”

Keith doesn’t answer. She’s got him there. He blinks, hard and fast, and is quiet the rest of the way back to the Atlas. He lets Acxa head out first and spends some time alone in Black before facing the world. Keith knows he’s a mess, and it’s not something people need to see in the leader of Voltron.

Speaking of which, there’s something else Keith needs to do before giving his answer to the Garrison’s leadership about following the Atlas into space.

He collects the paladins and Coran in a quiet lounge far away from the Lions’ hangars and the Garrison’s curious eyes. 

“We need to find Haggar,” he says. “Voltron owes our support to every planet that has been ravaged by the Galra. But I know this isn’t a fight you asked for.”

Coran coughs.

“We know Coran and Allura have dedicated their lives to spreading peace and diplomacy across the universe,” Keith corrects quickly, “And there may be other Alteans we need to find. Anyway, what I’m saying is, there’s a lot to do. And it may take a while. We may not get a chance to come back.”

He takes a deep breath and remembers Shiro telling him,  _ That’s not how a team works. They have to want it. _

“So if any of you want to leave, now’s your chance.”

They’re all giving him fond smiles, as if he’s lost his mind. 

“Uh, also, if any of you want to lead Voltron, that’s fine too,” he says hurriedly.

Their smiles drop. They all give him confused stares. 

“Dibs!” Lance says. 

“Oh no,” Allura says, and Lance’s face falls. Allura quickly corrects herself, “I mean… I think you’re amazing, Lance, and if you’d like—”

“I was just joking,” Lance says. “Keith already knows I don’t want it.” He smiles, and it’s genuine. Even humble. He’s grown into himself, and Keith realizes he would never have made the offer in the first place if Lance being their leader wasn’t something he could stomach. Gone is the boy whose first thought would be about himself and how his choices reflected upon him. Lance is the man who was first to step down as paladin when Shiro returned, ready to do what was best for the team.

Keith looks at Pidge, remembering what he’d said to her once, back when she’d tried to leave. “ _ You’re not the only one with a family. You’re putting the lives of two people over the lives of everyone else in the entire galaxy _ !” 

Well, hadn’t Keith gone and done exactly the same thing? Abandoned his entire team and the fate of the universe just to save Shiro? And then it had been Pidge who had saved them all.

Pidge shakes her head and touches her nose. “Not me. I’m coming with, of course, but… I just want to do my job.”

Keith turns to Hunk, remembers when they were lost in space, tethered to nothing and no one but each other, dying slowly and hallucinating. How Keith had lashed out at them all, but especially at Hunk. “ _ Are we even friends? _ ”

“Oh no. Noooo no no no. I just want to be the leg. I’m with Pidge. Nobody ever shoots at the leg.”

“Hunk, leading Voltron isn’t just about being the head,” Keith says. He looks at Allura, and sees his own thoughts reflected there, but he needs to be sure. “You of all people know that the gut has instincts the brain cannot explain. You could be the stomach and still lead Voltron.”

Hunk bites his lip, as if he’s not willing to say what he really thinks. It breaks Keith’s heart that he’s not Shiro, whose calm voice could make everyone open up to him and trust him without question. This will always be Shiro’s team first.

“It’s funny you say that,” Hunk says, laughing awkwardly, “because… um, sometimes? I think ever since you started leading Voltron… well, the second time, not the first. The first time you didn’t listen to anyone and were kind of a disaster. No offence.”

A muscle twitches in Keith’s jaw. It’s still a sore spot, how badly he let everyone down.

Hunk continues, “But the second time? It kinda felt like we all took turns leading. I mean, sometimes it was Pidge telling us where to go. Allura getting us out of the quintessence field. Lance saving our butts. Krolia running drills. Or Coran finding us the faunatonium. I didn’t like being bait, but it was still a good plan. I think because you’re not Shiro, who’s always so… I don’t know, cool and in charge. Sometimes, with Shiro, I disagreed but I didn’t say anything because I thought I must be wrong… because you know, it’s  _ Shiro _ . But you’re just you, so… um. It’s better?”

Keith’s jaw drops. He’s about to start yelling in Shiro’s defence, and only stops himself when he sees how everyone is looking shifty, as if they agree. 

_ Even Allura is nodding. _

Keith doesn’t know what to make of it. His hands start shaking and he crosses his arms in reflex.

“I know I didn’t want you to be my leader before,” Lance says. “But back when Black chose you I remembered something. When we were on the Balmera and you were going to jump in guns blazing, I stopped you and said we should lock the planes in the hangar instead so we wouldn’t hurt the creature.”

Keith nods. He remembers this. He’d started off protesting and realized mid-sentence that Lance’s idea was actually better than his own.

“You didn’t  _ like _ listening to my ideas,” Lance says, looking petulant. “But you did actually listen. To Shiro, I didn’t really exist. He’d picked you out as his successor without ever giving me a real chance.”

Keith bristles at this, but again, he knows Lance is right. At the end of the day, Lance is a gifted pilot, and his unsightly insecurities would have disappeared much sooner if someone had believed in him the way Shiro had believed in Keith. 

“Number Three is right,” Coran says.

“Wait, I’m Number Two!” Lance says.

“Not anymore,” Coran says with delight. “You were ordered by height, and it looks like our ordering has changed.”

Lance’s gaze flits toward Keith, and his face turns bright red. He makes a high-pitched sound like the whistle of a pressure cooker. 

“Anyway, when you’re used to command, it can be hard to have your authority questioned,” Allura says gently. “Both Shiro and I… we made mistakes. We overruled you. Keith, you didn’t want us entering the other reality when we heard the Altean distress call, but I was blinded by my love for my people and Lotor got the comet he wanted. I trusted Lotor. Shiro trusted himself more than he trusted you. Being the unquestioned leader of Voltron is what corrupted Zarkon in the first place. So I think it’s time we changed things around and really made Voltron what it was meant to be.”

Lance stands up. “If you really want to step down, that’s one thing. We’ll step up. But you’re doing just fine. And if you’re ever tired or feeling in over your head, you’ve got us.”

“GROUP HUG!” Hunk calls, and they pile on Keith, shoving him down to the floor and knocking out his breath before he has a chance to protest.

God, he loves them, but he can’t breathe.

Later that night, he’s resting in his bunk when the door slides open. It’s Griffin. The door slides shut behind him. 

Keith stands up. He’s been giving this a lot of thought. Griffin doesn’t look at him, simply reaches his hand towards Keith, but Keith catches his wrist before the hand enters his pants. 

“What the—”

“I get it now,” Keith says, and whatever Griffin hears in his tone makes him freeze and try to pull his hand away. Keith holds on tight. “Why you were such a shit to me. You’d worked so hard and here I was, stealing the limelight and acting like I didn’t even want it. I’m sorry.”

Griffin pulls harder, and this time Keith lets him go. “You could’ve just said you wanted to stop.”

Keith hesitates. He knows that physical affection doesn’t happen by magic. One person has to reach out. Another has to accept it. He’s always been waiting for others to reach out to him. What’s the worst that could happen if he offered? Rejection, but that only puts them back at square one.

He extends his hand. “You game to try being friends? For real?”

He almost falls over when Griffin accepts it.


	7. Shiro

Today is a good day. Today, Shiro is Captain of the Atlas. He has things to do, and a ship to take into the stars. Today, nobody on the bridge is looking at him as if he might collapse for some reason or kill them all. 

_ Today _ , Shiro decides. Today he can talk to Keith without losing the neatly stitched together edges of himself. He can rekindle their easy friendship. He can be the Shiro that Keith remembers and loves.

After work he looks for Keith in all the usual places, expecting to find him on the roof of the garrison, out by the cliffs where they used to ride their hoverbikes, or even back at ths hack. He’s clearly been staying there at least some of the time (Shiro can smell the wolf’s unique scent of fur and electricity). 

But Keith isn’t there, and it is no longer a good day. Shiro starts to wonder if there was a mission Keith went on with Acxa, if the paladins are having a conversation without him, and as those thoughts start to take hold others do too, reminding him that he might always be welcome in Keith’s life, but he is no longer necessary. 

Shiro is about to head back to the Atlas when he hears the telltale zap of a space wolf teleporting nearby. Keith appears in the middle of the shack, covered in mud and laughing with the kind of openness Shiro has  _ never _ seen on his face before. 

His heart cracks open with love. And Shiro isn’t stupid, he knew he was fucked the moment Keith walked back into his life after two years on a space whale looking like an avenging angel. Shiro has accepted the fact that this memory belongs to the clone but it doesn’t make it any less real. 

Shiro might have told himself stories about being a mentor or older brother figure to Keith but all those stories belie themselves the minute Keith—this new, older, more confident Keith—so much as opens his mouth. This Keith doesn’t just command Shiro’s respect as a peer, he makes Shiro want to worship him on his knees.

“Shiro?” 

Ah, yes. The intended outcomes of this conversation slowly flicker and page themselves back into Shiro’s scrambled mind. Be confident original-Shiro. Rekindle friendship. Preserve boundaries.

Yeah, none of that’s going to happen. Especially not when Keith starts to strip off his muddy clothes.

“Matt told me about Naxzela.”

That was… not actually something he meant to say. 

Keith frowns in confusion as he puts on his black t-shirt, as if the word Naxzela is insufficient to look up the number of times he’s done something stupidly self-sacrificing.

“Oh? What about it?”

“What do you mean, what about it?”

Keith sighs, a downward smile at the edge of his mouth. “If he brought it up to you, it must mean you were thinking of doing something similar and he was trying to talk you out of it.”

Shiro feels off-balance, defensive. It’s not possible for Keith to know him so well when Shiro barely knows himself. But he doesn’t want to pick a fight with Keith and ruin the day either.

Keith says, “Can I try something?”

Shiro nods. Keith walks up to him and takes his human hand in his own gloved palms. He places the palm on the back of his own neck and holds it there.

“What are you doing?”

“Testing a theory. Why did you come here, Shiro?”

_ Be confident original-Shiro. Rekindle friendship. Preserve boundaries. _

The first of these proves insurmountable. He feels the strange refrain of  _ failure, monster, burden, traitor _ flit through his head in an endless loop, as if by touching Keith he’s somehow created a resonant feedback loop between his current self and the young Keith who stole his car two lifetimes ago. 

He had seen himself in Keith all the way back then, but then he’d only seen Keith’s potential as the mirror to his own best self. He hadn’t seen that he had in himself the same capacity as Keith for crippling self-doubt. Now, Keith has inherited Shiro’s legacy, but Shiro has inherited Keith’s insecurities. Their roles have reversed. 

And Keith’s still waiting for an answer.

“I know I screwed things up,” he says hurriedly. “Between us, I mean.”

He waits for Keith to protest, to disagree, to bring them back to the familiar pattern of excuses and affirmations. 

But Keith just bites his lip, hesitant, and then seems to make a decision. His eyes flash yellow, and then a strong hand finds the back of Shiro’s neck.

“Unless you’re making speeches, you’re really bad at talking,” Keith says. “How did I not know this about you?”


	8. Keith

When they touch, with intention, it isn’t as if Keith can read Shiro’s mind, but rather that Keith’s mind brings him his own memories that would allow him to feel the same things. 

_ Failure _ . Sitting outside Iverson’s office after the fight with Griffin, waiting to be suspended.

_ Monster. _ That one is easy, his Galra self on display as he cuts off Shiro’s arm.

_ Burden _ . Every time he tried to walk away from Shiro, warning him he wasn’t worth it.

_ Traitor _ . Shaking on the floor of the castle after the trials, trying to put himself back together in his room while hearing Shiro defend him to the others. To Allura.

For the last several months, Keith has felt a residual jealousy of Allura, who got to hold Shiro’s consciousness in her hands while bringing it to the clone’s body. What must that have felt like? To be  _ that close _ ? 

It was Allura who took him aside and told him, after the group hug that Keith still can’t believe happened, “I know what we said about Shiro was hard to hear. You mustn’t think we aren’t grateful for everything he’s done. Every leader makes mistakes, and the great ones… well, they’re the ones that beat themselves up the most when they screw up.”

Keith had puffed up, about to say,  _ He didn’t screw up _ , but Allura had pinned him with her gaze, that all-knowing way she had about her. Her eyes didn’t quite say,  _ I know his soul better than you do _ but it was close.

“In some ways, it’s a mercy you now know,” Allura went on. “He’ll never believe you love him unless you see his faults too.”

It had left Keith gutted, hurt bone-deep. Betrayed beyond the telling of it. But what hurt most of all was that he knew, deep down, she was right. He had read it in the clone’s violet unseeing eyes, the moment when he’d said the words,  _ I love you _ . For a moment Shiro had pulled back in surprise, but then the moment had passed. As if Shiro was saying,  _ No you don’t. I don’t believe you. _

He’d left Allura politely, gone away with the wolf, determined to blow off steam in a slightly more appropriate way than Griffin. They’d ended up playing fetch by a brook, the exercise leaving Keith’s heart pounding with exhaustion, and eventually with release.

He’d been meaning to find Shiro and talk, so Shiro showing up at the shack, unannounced, felt like a sign from the universe.

It hits him, all at once,  _ Shiro hasn’t touched me since he woke up in this body. _

And he corrects this immediately, placing Shiro’s hand on his neck. The connection is… excruciating. He no longer envies Allura this; he’s in awe of her for knowing how to tend to a damaged soul without making it worse. He will need to ask her for pointers.

Shiro is saying words that have nothing to do with how he feels. Is this normal? Has he always locked away his true feelings beneath the surface, planning everything he says to ensure everyone else’s comfort? It’s as if his words, measured and slick, are like a thin layer of oil over a raging emotional sea.

If that’s true, maybe only  _ Slav _ managed to get under the skin enough to know the real Shiro, and  _ that’s _ going to keep Keith up nights.

Shiro says he screwed up, as if it is’t blatantly obvious to Keith that ever since their fight Shiro’s been screwing up on purpose, pulling away from him for the same reason Keith once stole his car. 

_ Don’t believe in me. I’m not worth it. _

Well, Keith knows exactly what to do with that.

“Yeah, you screwed up,” he says, but with a kind smile. “You had impossible decisions to make after unthinkable things were done to you, and you did the best you could.”

He tips Shiro’s forehead down towards his own so they touch.

“The Shiro I love isn’t perfect,” Keith whispers, noting the way Shiro’s breath hitches in protest. “But he’s not a quitter.”

Shiro slumps against him, and Keith holds him up. 

“I can’t… you mustn’t…”

“You will. And I do.” Keith takes a deep breath to keep from saying any more. He doesn’t want to jinx the glimpse of the future he saw on the space whale, the one that showed Shiro growing to a ripe and wrinkly old age. It’s a good future, even if he doesn’t yet know his own place in it. He will never come to terms with Shiro dying, but maybe he can talk to Krolia about learning to be brave. 

Shiro pulls away, shaking his head. 

“Hey,” Keith says. “I’ve saved you from Garrison bureaucracy, space lizards, an alien warlord and a ten thousand year-old witch. What makes you think I can’t save you from yourself, too? Especially when you’re the one who showed me how to do it?”

Shiro smiles sadly. “I’m not going to win this, am I?”

“It really depends on your definition of  _ winning _ , old-timer.”

Shiro takes a deep breath and sighs. He makes his way to the couch and sits down, putting his head in his hands.

“I have some pretty terrible days, Keith. The things the clone said to drive you away before… you have to know, that was me too. That could be me again.”

“So don’t say them. Don’t try to be perfect. Just work on feeling better.”

“It’s not that easy. I-I’m not always in control of myself. I get frustrated, depressed.”

Keith barks out a laugh. “Thank goodness for that. Do you have any idea what it’s like for me, trying to fill your shoes? The way everyone always looks at me like I’m the cheap imitation version of the Black paladin? Do you think the Garrison and the leaders of Earth would have so little faith in me if you hadn’t set the bar so impossibly high?”

Shiro reels back as if struck, and Keith hopes he’s not going too far. He needs to cauterize the wound. He’s trying to do it causing as little pain as possible.

“None of that shit at the Garrison was about me being Galra, not really. It was about you, and what you decided it meant to be the best of humanity. So  _ fuck  _ yeah, I hope the Atlas crew doesn’t have to deal with the Shiro who needed to be  _ inhuman _ to lead. I hope they get a leader who forgives their screwups not because he’s some kind of god, but because he sometimes screws up too.”

Shiro makes a sound, a choked-off sob, and Keith shuts the fuck up.

“ _ Keith, _ ” Shiro says. “I’m  _ so, so sorry. _ ”

Keith goes to him at once. He kneels over him on the couch, placing his hands on Shiro’s cheeks, tipping his face up.

The question is in his eyes, and Shiro gives the briefest of nods. 

It’s enough. Keith closes the distance.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, hoped you liked this fic. If you want to read more of my other writing I'm over at bit.ly/TheNightWolves (a sci-fi story with more than one nod to VLD) or @anat_deracine on Twitter.


End file.
